When he flew into the Arctic a few years ago for one of his manly photo-ops, this time with a polar bear his image-makers had tranquilized on the ice, Vladimir Putin looked at the unconscious beast and declared: "He's the real master of the Arctic."

Stephen Harper talks of Northern sovereignty but demonstrates a purely militaristic approach, with the recent addition of a little nod to resource extraction. At no time has the prime minister acknowledged that an essential ingredient to our sovereignty is sustainable and liveable communities in the North.